


The Bones of You

by Dan_Francisco



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Lie, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23658193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dan_Francisco/pseuds/Dan_Francisco
Summary: Pyrrha gets a rude reminder about Jaune's death.
Kudos: 7
Collections: Fanworks Club Monthly Prompts





	The Bones of You

It started as a simple thing. A typical day, one of few breaks they had in between hunting down the Relics and evading Salem and her allies. Pyrrha had the worst of it behind her, she thought. After all, they’d escaped Gorizont not much worse for wear, _especially_ all things considered. She could have _died_ , after all, and the only thing saving her had been Ruby’s intervention. The house they were staying in had far too many people in it though, and she found herself heading outside more often than not, either to clandestinely smoke or just get away from it all for a little bit, letting Mistral’s cool air pass over her as she listened to the wind slide between the trees. Sometimes, she just watched the sky, following the trails of cargo airships and following birds as they sang their songs and darted between trees. Today though, Pyrrha did something different. She decided that today would be a good day to sit out here on the balcony, leave the world behind for a while and listen to music, something familiar. Like always, Pyrrha put on her earbuds, shuffling whichever playlist popped up first on her Scroll.

It was a mistake the millisecond she heard the first notes.

Pyrrha didn’t quite recognize it at first, because the feeling was so alien to her that it didn’t make any sense. She took a deep breath in, looking out at the near-edge of Mistral where the neat and orderly paths gave way to clusters of shaggy trees and bushes that seemed to grow unchecked. For a while, it didn’t even seem like anything was amiss, but all at once the realization dawned on her. Like she had just swallowed burning coals, a knot raced its way down her chest, nestling solemnly in her stomach as it felt like every muscle in her body began to ache all at once. Her throat became scratchy, like it was made out of the roughest wool blanket she had ever known, a feeling that water could not remove or alleviate no matter how much she drank.

On instinct, Pyrrha looked down at her Scroll, reluctant to actually see what song had dared evoke this from her. It was a song she knew well, because Jaune listened to it all the time, and she eventually did too, if only because it had once managed to strike the right notes of good feelings and interesting beats. Following his death though, she hadn’t even listened to it. More had to be done, she told herself, there wasn’t time to listen to music.

Her Scroll told her that the last time she had played it was a day before the fall of Beacon. If she was so inclined, it could probably even tell her that she had fallen asleep listening to it, if she remembered correctly how the night before everything went to hell had happened. As if it’d help with how horrific her throat was feeling, Pyrrha swallowed as she looked back to the sky, realizing far too late that her vision had become blurry.

Right. This was her monthly reminder that she had lost Jaune. She had stood idly by, let him go to his death, and had done nothing to prevent it. Closing her eyes brought nothing that would help – her vision was replaced by memories of watching him run off to fight Cinder, the scorched remnants of his armor that Ruby wore and the broken look on her friend’s face when the grim reality hit her. Each lyric, each note, the very _idea_ of the song slapped Pyrrha in the face, bringing back the memories she had forgotten about and kept locked away.

She opened her eyes just to see the world through a broken prism of tears and haziness. Why had she been cursed to live this torture again? Why did it continue to haunt her? She should have been able to move on by now. But instead of being able to do that, Pyrrha realized what she missed most about Jaune was the friendship he brought, the way he unified their team and rallied them to a cause that he believed in full-stop. To him, there had never been a question of whether to fight for the cause Ozpin presented them. It was _always_ a question of how many people they could help.

Pyrrha never got a chance to ask him what made him so selfless. She never got to know any of his sister’s names. Hell, she barely even knew anything about him beyond the fact he was an Arc, and Pyrrha felt that was her greatest failing of all. _There’s time,_ she had always told herself. _Four years at Beacon, plenty of time in the world._ After graduating? They could travel together as a team, visit their hometowns and learn everything that school had prevented them from knowing about each other. If she knew she had less than a week to spend with him, she would have written down every word he had ever said. Pyrrha would have interrogated him, known every detail she could pry out of him as if she was writing a biography about Jaune.

She bit at the inside of her cheek, hoping that’d help her recover from whatever severe emotional event had overwhelmed her. It didn’t. She sighed, a shuddering, stilted attempt at letting out air that accompanied a half-dead sob, with the realization she had lost that opportunity forever. She couldn’t ever talk to him again. All she had were memories, incomplete and missing plots, scattered mementos that she clutched to because Pyrrha would rather have them than forget. She felt the tears roll down her cheeks as her face fell heavy, wishing that it had been _her_ who had sacrificed herself to Cinder instead of Jaune. It should have been her.

Pyrrha sighed, swallowing again as she wiped away he tears. Her hands came up wet no less than three times as she hung her head low, listening to the cursed song fade out and replace itself with another. Her heart still hung heavy, and she knew this was just one step in a long event. Like any battle, fighting with emotions always came in waves, and she was well-versed in how this second wave would come for her. This wasn’t over, not by a long shot. It just so happened that her own emotions had caught her unprepared.

“Are you okay?”

She blinked, realizing Weiss stood next to her and was looking at her with a concerned look on her face. Pyrrha paused, knowing that if she told the truth, she risked flooding herself with pain, and she was _not_ prepared to tackle that again. Pyrrha needed time, time to reset and organize herself. That, and she didn’t feel she should burden anyone else with her struggles. No doubt the others had moved on – wrestling with how to deal with Jaune’s passing was her own fight, not somebody else’s.

“Yes,” she lied, avoiding Weiss’s eyes. “I’m fine.”

Weiss looked at her curiously, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes as if she didn’t _really_ believe her, but eventually nodded. “Okay then,” she said, heading back inside, much to Pyrrha’s relief.

The door closed, cutting Pyrrha off from the others once more. The pit of despair that had settled in her did not budge. Today was going to be a long day if she was going to be missing Jaune for the rest of it. She sighed again, staring up at the sky. Right now, all Pyrrha wanted to know was why. Why had fate seen fit to take Jaune away from not just her, but from Ruby, Yang, _everyone_ who knew him? Why did it have to be right then, right there, that his life ended?

How come she was sitting here two years later, the pain and trauma as fresh to her as the day it had happened?


End file.
